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Ferrol

Airports. I’m tired of crying in them. I’m tired of being in them, really. This is the second time I’ve cried in the Santiago de Compostela Airport. This time it’s my fault. It’s raining. I look to my left, another girl is crying. She has someone holding her, though, so it’s probably for different reasons.

All the men in Galicia wear the same cologne.

This is it, the last leg of my trip. I’m headed to Barcelona for three more days and then home. What have I learned? I know how better to drink Gintonics. I know how to get gas, to order food. I can take a coffee, drive a car, kill roaches in a hotel room, buy groceries. I almost learned how to cook an octopus. Could I do all of that already?

In the last two days, though, I’ve learned 4 new varietals, I drank one of them out of a barrel. Yesterday I drank Ferrol out of a barrel with Luis Rodriguez. On Monday I tasted the wine I helped make last year at Fazenda Prádio. Last week I drank Txakoli like a champion and the week before I drank the wines of one of the funniest, foul-mouthed men I’ve met since my Grandma Jan. I’ve stained my hands making Ratafia. I’ve learned about mildew, about vine training, about planting vines on volcanoes. I’ve learned about sulfites and no sulfites and wind and drought. I’ve learned about solera systems, about making barrels and about aging in amphorae. About sacrifice and loss and replanting for the good of the region.

When I get home I’ll learn how to cook that octopus.

Spain is an incredible place. All of the people I’ve talked to, the winemakers I’ve met- each with different ideas but all with the same goal in mind. There is so much happening here I don’t know how many blog posts it will take to relay the message. I hope I’m the right person to do it. I hope a little Picasso and a stroll through El Born will give me inspiration to pull it all together. Otherwise, what the fuck was I doing here?

I think next I will learn how not to cry in airports. It’s so dramatic, really. Wildly unnecessary. A solid waste of time when I could be enjoying a Gintonic.